"People make up this stuff--when they're not high--and earnestly lie to their kids about it... just so they can give them their spare change? Millions of people do this?"

Well... when you put it that way, it does sound crazy! Anyway, thanks for making me laugh out loud.

Thinking about it though, it's probably more to make the child thrilled to lose a tooth, an experience which has the potential to be traumatic otherwise.

Kind of like me explaining sparklers at fourth of July to an exchange student. She was shocked that our tradition involved setting sharp bits of metal on fire then giving them to kids and telling them to wave those sharp bits of metal around. I had to explain that we celebrate our freedom to be reckless idiots just as strongly as our freedom for everything else

"People make up this stuff--when they're not high--and earnestly lie to their kids about it... just so they can give them their spare change? Millions of people do this?"

Well... when you put it that way, it does sound crazy! Anyway, thanks for making me laugh out loud.

Thinking about it though, it's probably more to make the child thrilled to lose a tooth, an experience which has the potential to be traumatic otherwise.

Kind of like me explaining sparklers at fourth of July to an exchange student. She was shocked that our tradition involved setting sharp bits of metal on fire then giving them to kids and telling them to wave those sharp bits of metal around. I had to explain that we celebrate our freedom to be reckless idiots just as strongly as our freedom for everything else

Not that much different from people celebrating events by going out and shooting automatic weapons into the sky.

Lot more deaths from shooting a bullet into the air (do they not *realize* that it comes down at high velocity? seriously) than from waving around sparklers, in my opinion.

Who are doing this, and on what occasion? I had not heard of this, it sounds scary!!

People with no sense, and on pretty much any occasion they can come up with I've known two people to get injured from this, both while I was a college, both times from an idiot shooting off a gun a quarter-mile away and not realizing the whole "I shot a bullet into the air / It fell to earth, I knew not where" thing. (With apologies to Longfellow - I'm sure he'd be against this too, if his arrow had hit a person instead of an oak . . .)

Lot more deaths from shooting a bullet into the air (do they not *realize* that it comes down at high velocity? seriously) than from waving around sparklers, in my opinion.

Who are doing this, and on what occasion? I had not heard of this, it sounds scary!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire It's not *super* common but it happens. I think they maybe think bullets are like balloons, and they just float away? (Balloons, of course, come down eventually, too, and even they can cause problems--although of a very different sort).

Lot more deaths from shooting a bullet into the air (do they not *realize* that it comes down at high velocity? seriously) than from waving around sparklers, in my opinion.

Who are doing this, and on what occasion? I had not heard of this, it sounds scary!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire It's not *super* common but it happens. I think they maybe think bullets are like balloons, and they just float away? (Balloons, of course, come down eventually, too, and even they can cause problems--although of a very different sort).

Thanks for the link, and... wow. Yeah I do think they must believe the bullets just disappear...

Lot more deaths from shooting a bullet into the air (do they not *realize* that it comes down at high velocity? seriously) than from waving around sparklers, in my opinion.

Who are doing this, and on what occasion? I had not heard of this, it sounds scary!!

People with no sense, and on pretty much any occasion they can come up with I've known two people to get injured from this, both while I was a college, both times from an idiot shooting off a gun a quarter-mile away and not realizing the whole "I shot a bullet into the air / It fell to earth, I knew not where" thing. (With apologies to Longfellow - I'm sure he'd be against this too, if his arrow had hit a person instead of an oak . . .)

I used to believe bullets just lose momentum when they come down, so eventually they would pose no more danger than a thrown rock.

Apparently it takes a lot of time and distance before they lose momentum - they are much more likely to hit things first.

Logged

You are only young once. After that you have to think up some other excuse.

Lot more deaths from shooting a bullet into the air (do they not *realize* that it comes down at high velocity? seriously) than from waving around sparklers, in my opinion.

Who are doing this, and on what occasion? I had not heard of this, it sounds scary!!

People with no sense, and on pretty much any occasion they can come up with I've known two people to get injured from this, both while I was a college, both times from an idiot shooting off a gun a quarter-mile away and not realizing the whole "I shot a bullet into the air / It fell to earth, I knew not where" thing. (With apologies to Longfellow - I'm sure he'd be against this too, if his arrow had hit a person instead of an oak . . .)

I used to believe bullets just lose momentum when they come down, so eventually they would pose no more danger than a thrown rock.

Apparently it takes a lot of time and distance before they lose momentum - they are much more likely to hit things first.

If anything, I think they GAIN - they slow down on the way up, hit the top of the trajectory, and then accelerate on the way down.

Logged

What part of v_e = \sqrt{\frac{2GM}{r}} don't you understand? It's only rocket science!

"The problem with re-examining your brilliant ideas is that more often than not, you discover they are the intellectual equivalent of saying, 'Hold my beer and watch this!'" - Cindy Couture